As leaders of America’s colleges, universities, and scholarly societies, we speak with one voice against the unprecedented government overreach and political interference now endangering American higher education
We are open to constructive reform and do not oppose legitimate government oversight. However, we must oppose undue government intrusion in the lives of those who learn, live, and work on our campuses.
A statement by the American Association of Colleges and Universities signed by more than 150 college, university and academic association presidents
In what amounts to an Academic Declaration of Independence from Trumpian tyranny higher education leaders all across the land stood together to say “Hands off!” The signees run small private colleges, large state universities, the cream of the Ivy League crop and prestigious academic associations.
Say, how many Florida college and university presidents said “Hands off!”?
Well, there was Grant Cornwell, President of the private Rollins College.
And…
Say, did we mention the president of the private Rollins College?
Listen, you could go blind searching the fine print for the name of a Florida university president like…oh, just to pull one out of a hat…Kent Fuchs.
You know, the president of Florida’s “Flagship University.”
In fact no public Florida university or college president signed the declaration. And there’s a reason for that.
For all the attention he’s getting now for threatening Harvard, Trump is just a newcomer on the Political War On The Academy front.
Over the past few years, here in Florida, The Great DeSanitizer has thoroughly purged, censored, suppressed and intimidated presidents, faculty and students alike. When it comes to taming the academy Trump’s an amateur compared to our anti-Ron.
In particular, the Guv’s been especially artful in infiltrating his political cronies into the top ranks of college and university leadership.
Say, how did that Ben Sasse experiment work out, Gators?
As Florida Phoenix, and longtime FSU faculty member Diane Robert’s writes:
“An uneducated populace is a compliant populace: Ron DeSantis is trying to destroy higher education in this state, reducing universities to Christian Nationalist support systems for sports teams. College is no longer about intellectual excellence: It’s about the governor’s war against the 21st Century.”
Yeah, but we just won another basketball national championship, right?
Of course Fuchs’ name is conspicuously absent from the AACU declaration. The likely reason he was brought back from retirement after Sasse so spectacularly flamed out is that he so adroitly kept the lid on at Tigert Hall BS (Before Sasse).
He murmured not a peep of protest while The Great DeSanitizer was performing major surgery on Florida academic freedoms: Dictating what and how faculty could teach, violating the First Amendment rights of students and whitewashing campus DEI initiatives.
All in the name of stamping out Woke. Whatever the hell that is.
Listen, you would have go back more than half a century – to the time J. Wayne Reitz meekly bowed to the whims of the John’s Committee – to identify a UF president who has been more complacent than the once and current figurehead.
No, these days UF’s big “innovation” is to make campus police accessories to ICE. All the better to facilitate the efficient removal of troublesome international students who might, oh, I dunno, accidentally stray too close to a campus protest.
“The price of abridging the defining freedoms of American higher education will be paid by our students and our society,” insists the AACU’s Academic Declaration of Independence.
No price is apparently too high to pay in this state. Floriduh’s war was well and ruthlessly waged by our politicians. And capitulation by the Academy was swift and silent.
Kudos to the President of the private Rollins College though.
FreeGNV 